Makers of Modern Strategy
by Spitfireness
Summary: Forget politics, hating Draco Malfoy makes strange bedfellows. Blaise Zabini and Hermione Granger hatch a plot.
1. I

Title: Makers of Modern Strategy  
Author: Nes  
Rating: R  
Summary: Hating Draco Malfoy makes strange bedfellows. Blaise and Hermione hatch a plot.  
  
Her troubles began in Arithmancy. Looking back, it was odd considering that classrooms were generally a safe place for Hermione Granger. She went into classrooms with total confidence of her knowledge and left them with the kind of smug satisfaction one could only get from its most excellent application and show of mastery.  
  
That day, however, Hermione was approached before her leather knapsack had been filled to brimming and the smug, though good-natured, smile could fully settle onto her face.  
  
"Miss Granger." The voice was soft and polite but too firm to be ignored.  
  
She looked away from her back and to a pair of luxuriantly comfortable dragonhide shoes up to a tailored robe and finally to blue eyes framed by thick black lashes that Parvati would envy, if not worship adoringly.  
  
"Yes, Mister Zabini," she matched his formality somewhat mockingly. Though she and Blaise Zabini were yearmates and shared classes, as Slytherins and Gryffindors inevitably did, they had never interacted directly before and Hermione was intrigued. Besides, she had to fill her poor knapsack carefully now or it would break under the weight of scrolls and tomes despite the patchwork of strengthening spells she had layered upon it. She could talk to the mysterious boy while putting her things away so even if he was only going to harass her for notes or homework, it would not be a waste of time. The obligations of expediency obeyed, she further decided that she could afford to be polite so she added, "How may I help you?"  
  
The classroom was otherwise empty so he sprawled over her table and its companion chair leaving them face to face but maintaining a comfortable distance between them.  
  
"Sixth year is drawing to a close,"He looked her straight in the eye and began before Hermione shook her head impatiently.  
  
"If that line was a prelude to either a declaration of tender affections you've held for me since fourth year or the beginning of fond reminisces, I'll be forced to go deaf."  
  
"Actually it was an attempt at gentle conversation to put your defensive Gryffindor heart at ease before seguing into my ulterior motives but I can see that such persuasive tactics are clearly wasted upon you."  
  
"Disregarding the seventy percent insulting content of your last statement, I must admit I prefer openness to your idea of persuasion."  
  
"To be subtle is to be Slytherin."  
  
She cocked a disbelieving eyebrow at him, "You thought that was subtle?"  
  
Blaise ignored her comment and soldiered on. "As I was saying, sixth year is nearly over and we're approaching our seventh and final year. In accordance, the administration will soon be announcing the next Head Boy and Girl."  
  
Hermione brightened and asked with false enthusiasm and surprise, "Really?"  
  
"Yes, really," he answered in the same tone before shifting his angle his approach. "The Head Students' Handbook, page nine."  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?" She looked at him curiously, "How did you get a hold of the Handbook? I tried and was told its only available to the students who hold the positon."  
  
"And second years shouldn't be capable of brewing Polyjuice," he looked at her pointedly before continuing. "I have my ways. And the passage I am referring to is one that outlines the living quarters of the Head Students. 'Their bedrooms shall be adjacent and also they shall share a common room and bathroom.' End quote."  
  
"And lo, they shall snog? I don't believe you. Honestly, a bathroom? Why should the administration encourage cohabitation? Can you imagine the tawdry scenarios provoked by teenage hormones, a lone bathtub and the kinds of foams, scents, and lotions this school provides? Parents would be up in arms. It doesn't make sense. Especially when it would be so simple for them to add another bathroom with magic."  
  
It was Blaise's turn to raise an eyebrow, "Tawdry scenarios? Have you thought about this often?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Right, then." He looked at her doubtfully. "So you haven't thought of yourself covered in patchouli scented bubbles, glowing by soft, seductive candlelight-"  
  
Hermione let his voice carry her for a moment before part of his narrative caught her attention.  
  
"Draco Malfoy offering to wash your back?"  
  
"Malfoy? Beg your pardon?"  
  
Blaise grinned, "While Draco Malfoy is still choking on your, shall we say, academic dust, he has maintained excellent grades. He's top candidate for Head Boy. Which means you two will be sharing a bathtub and your 'tawdry scenarios' may have been acted out by this time next year."  
  
"You, Mister Zabini, are being ridiculous again. Malfoy only gets what privileges his father can buy him." She glared at him. "And stop saying 'tawdry scenarios' and making air quotes with your hands."  
  
Blaise folded his hands in his lap dutifully but was still grinning wolfishly. "You know Lucius' influence has only dissipated since the war and that the money never mattered much to Dumbledore anyway."  
  
"Even if he has good grades, his attitude and misbehavior certainly preclude his appointment to such an honor."  
  
Blaise continued to grin at her, "Well, he does have all those extracurriculars."  
  
"He's a liar and a cheat!"  
  
"But it's not like he set a professor on fire, broke curfew a few hundred times, degraded a second professor before leaving her classroom in a snit, physically assaulted a fellow student, began a club under prohibition which coincedentally drove the Headmaster away and led to the defacement and demoralization of a second student, and conspired for a third professor to be attacked by a mob of centaurs." He ticked off each off offense on long, elegant fingers and Hermione's ire rose accordingly.  
  
"I don't know what you're talking about."  
  
"Please, Miss Granger, don't deny it. Be proud, after all, you've gotten away with all of it." He looked at her again, eyes all blue and piercing. "Or have you? I mean, maybe its all going be accounted for now. The decision of Head Girl is one made by all the faculty, someone's bound to remember what a bad girl you are underneath your primness."  
  
"I have the highest scores in decades!"  
  
"Exactly," his grin had reached Cheshire proportions and Hermione realized she'd been tricked. "So you see that while Draco's own record isn't spotless, it doesn't really matter. If they make you Head Girl, they have no excuse to reject him on grounds of rulebreaking. So there you will both be, misfit rulebreaking intellectual giants sharing a bathtub."  
  
Hermione involuntarily shuddered at the idea. When she opened her eyes to remove the frightening visual, Blaise was still there. Still grinning. "You've broken years of silence to give me nightmares about Malfoy?"  
  
"What better reason?" He shrugged momentarily before straightening again, all business. "Miss Granger, I come to you with a proverb."  
  
Hermione blinked. The conversation was getting stranger by the second.  
  
"The enemy of my enemy-"  
  
"Is my best friend," she finished for him, still not seeing his point.  
  
"You don't like Draco. I don't like Draco. It wouldn't please either of us if he became Head Boy. I'd say that's more than enough basis for an alliance."  
  
She had no idea whether it was sure that Blaise was at odds with Malfoy but she didn't have evidence to affirm or deny the idea either. She knew Malfoy annoyed her enough that she could happily beat him with a crowbar, heal him, and then acquaint him with additional blunt objects. Blaise had to live with Malfoy and therefore had more opportunity to be annoyed. She decided she could believe him, a little. She looked at him suspiciously.  
  
"I assure you I've no designs on the position. All that patrolling? Shades too much responsibility for my tastes, you know. I just don't want him to have it."  
  
She huffed, incidentally blowing a wayward strand of hair away from her the pink bow of her mouth. "I most certainly do not know anything regarding, nor have interest in your tastes."  
  
"That is," he paused momentarily to glance at her lips, "regrettable."  
  
Hermione concentrated on not letting her jaw drop to her chest. Then she rationalized. Clearly, Blaise was attempting a kamikaze of persuasion tactics and flirtation was bound to be included in the mix.  
  
She narrowed her eyes and closed her pack with a decisive snap, "What's in it for you?"  
  
"Slytherin politics. Malfoy's held the balance of power for too long now."  
  
Yes, Hermione thought, she could see how that would move even a self-proclaimed lazy person to be proactive. He had to have at least a modicum of ambition to be sorted into Slytherin. And it was cunning of him to approach her. It was even rather pragmatic of him to approach her, besides her House and blood. She nearly smiled, it was all so refreshing...  
  
"Well, aren't you going to make some clumsy, albeit cutting by Gryffindor standards, remark about my House?"  
  
She shook her head. "Oh, no. I wouldn't dream of it. You have enough individual faults that I don't have to resort to impersonal generalities. I consider it the basest form of wit."  
  
Blaise bit his tongue sourly. Hermione was pleased. The insult was a stalling technique while she decided whether she wanted to involve herself in another House's internal affairs. She was fairly certain she could handle Malfoy on her own but Blaise had turned out to be an interesting personality and she was reluctant to reject such a puzzle. Especially since it seemed he'd collected a rather large file of information on herself. It was only fair that she gather counterintelligence. If she rejected him now, he would never approach her again.  
  
Said enigma interrupted her thoughts again.  
  
"I'll have you know that little bit of sarcasm has sealed my determination to ally with you. Oh, I knew you were brilliant but that was...lovely. I'll give you until after dinner to decide but only because I'm sure you'll accept my offer."  
  
And so Blaise Zabini left, his robe positively swirling on the cloud of his own arrogance.  
  
If he had looked back, which he didn't since it have would broken the illusion of cool assurance, he would have seen the small, speculative smile on Hermione's face.  



	2. II

It was actually some days before the two met again. Hermione sequestered herself in the Gryffindor common room over the weekend with a determined look on her face to deter any but the bravest and most concerned to confront her. In her House, that meant only Harry and Ginny. Ron had prudently, and correctly, decided she only wanted time alone. Harry protested that she could enjoy the same in her room and Ron countered that she might want some background noise and a bit of warmth from the fire. Had Hermione been listening, she would have been impressed by the acuity of Ron's statement. As it was, the redhead had to console himself with being proven right when Hermione told her friends to leave her be.  
  
When situations allowed, Hermione preferred to let reason dictate her actions. She had taken a personality inventory years ago and was aware that her she was prone to quick and decisive reactions, often with unavoidable consequences. Sometimes it worked out in her favor but other times it had not. Her temper was quite strong, she felt things a little too much. In retrospect, the organization of S.P.E.W. had been a quick reaction to her first impressions of injustice. Had she stopped and thought about house elves and their supposed enslavement, it would have saved a lot of time, bad jokes, and knitting. It made for an amusing anecdote and substantial character growth, but she still cringed sometimes. Overall, she had decided that she liked her passionate (she was capable of equal amounts of anger and empathy) nature but perhaps should temper her responses with logic. Oh, she was still tempestuous but life had become less stressful since she had adopted her current philosophy.  
  
She remembered her father's amusement after a particular childhood episode; he warned her to pick her battles. She had hotly responded that she just because she was choosing them, did not mean she had to actually discard any. She could fight all her battles, it would only require strong will and proper planning, thank you very much. It was a story he still told his patients and she sometimes received copies of Sun Tzu or Clausewitz as a sort of good-natured ribbing.  
  
Hermione may have said the words in a fit of pique but that did not diminish their truth. She knew she had the will and ability to conspire against Malfoy, but did Blaise Zabini have the commitment? Being a Slytherin made it a given that he had a talent for conspiracy. He could probably teach her a few things and, oh, she knew he might want to hurt Malfoy's standing but how much did he really want it? Would he abandon her if the road became too difficult or slow? Or would he switch to Malfoy if circumstances changed to favor him and alert the authorities to her part in their plot, leaving her to take the fall?  
  
She simply didn't know enough about him to make a wise decision. There was nothing for it, she was going to have get to know him.  
  
Dinner wouldn't be served for another two hours and she had no idea where he spent his free time; he could be in his common room, with a girl, or on the pitch. Therefore the quickest way to find Zabini was to go to the library.  
  
He didn't disappoint. Hardly a chapter into Sieges are for the Weak (a mentality she found closeminded, but the book had its merits nonetheless), she noticed him approaching her corner.  
  
"You've wasted a lot of time, you know. A proper arrangment should have been in place at the beginning of fifth year, your procrastination dooms your plan before its begun."  
  
"Tut, Miss Granger. Don't bait me," he said as he took the empty seat across from her and pushed her stack of books aside.  
  
Others (not just Slytherins) would have reminded Hermione of her own delay or otherwise vehemently fended off the accusation. She quite liked the way he saw through her criticism, even her best best friends would have cried "Nag!" in his place. She also liked the use of formal address, it was businesslike. Her last name could have been used as an insult (much the way she used 'Malfoy') but her first name would have been too intimate. Mr. Zabini and Miss Granger was respectful and polite; it also left room for maneuvering later. It made her infinitely more comfortable about him, which was important since they might be spending a lot of time together in the future.  
  
He was watching her and waiting for an answer.  
  
Another plus, he did not seem to have the irrepressible urge to smirk that Malfoy, Snape, and sometimes even Pansy exhibited. She wasn't sure if Goyle and Crabbe smirked or not, blankness seemed to overcome any facial expression and Slytherin genetics in their special case.  
  
In response, she pushed a quill and tightly rolled scroll across the table.  
  
He broke the seal, unrolled the parchment, and skimmed the document before crumbling it into dust with a flick of his wand.  
  
She stood and moved to leave the moment he destroyed hours of hard work. She looked back at him to say, "This never happened."  
  
She expected him to nod his tacit agreement, but instead he sighed like one often overworked, underappreciated, and clearly used to working with the less talented. Somewhat affronted, Hermione signaled her full attention by glaring and shifting her body to face him.  
  
"I find your statement rather...a lot coming from someone who has just created a paper trail," he gestured vaguely at the dust motes floating in the area.  
  
Before Hermione could voice exactly how offended she was, Blaise made an actual, valid point. "This was your problem with Dumbledore's Army. I know Gryffindors aren't good at plotting, but I expected you, at least, to learn from past mistakes."  
  
Well, now that was practically a compliment. Hermione sat back down and informed him, "Actually, that wasn't the problem. It was just more visible as the agent of my wrath. The real hitch was the inclusion of people too weak-willed to commit but too feeble-minded to keep their mouths shut."  
  
He darted a quick glance at her and Hermione blushed a little, realizing she might have growled the last bit. She supposed she was still a smidge angry at Marietta. Ah, well, Blaise might think of it as a little object lesson and be less likely to cross her. She loved multitasking.  
  
But back to the matter at hand. "That's why I wanted you to fill out the paperwork. I can't make a good decision until I know more about you."  
  
He took a second to think. "You can't just take my word that I really don't like Draco?"  
  
"I don't doubt that," she shook her head. "But I'm sure you can understand my position."  
  
"Well, at least you're taking this seriously. I was feeling sort of shaky about you when I saw the 'Application for Alliance with Secretive Slytherins for Successful Subversion. You realize you gave me an application for ASSS, right?'"  
  
Hermione smiled mischeviously, "I rather like the hissing part at the end."  
  
He grinned back, "This could work." 


End file.
